The Coffee Vending Machine Thief
The thief.
The result of interrogating my coffee vending machine thief… or rather, Aseong’s girlfriend.
Her name was Gang Seon-yeong.
She was twenty-one and attended the same university as Aseong, she said.
“Um… Aseong found my phone for me.”
She’d lost her phone, Aseong had found it for her, and that was how they met… and so on and so forth.
Anyway, the girl Aseong had introduced as his girlfriend was standing in front of me, fidgeting awkwardly.
“Hmm.”
I took a moment to size up our coffee vending machine thief.
She was petite and cute. Shoulder-length brown hair, and her clothes were pure and wholesome—she must be popular.
“Uh… um… why are you staring…?”
As I kept observing her, the vending machine thief spoke up timidly. Apparently being stared at so openly made her self-conscious.
“It’s nothing. Make yourself comfortable.”
Not wanting to scare her for no reason, I sat her down on the sofa and took a seat beside her.
“Uh, why….”
“Where’d Aseong go?”
More importantly—where had that little brother of mine gone off to, leaving his girlfriend alone? I hadn’t even told him to go buy coffee yet today.
“Ah… we were going to cook together, so he went to the supermarket.”
“What? Why leave your girlfriend by herself?”
“Well, that’s….”
At my question, Seon-yeong’s words dried up, and she kept glancing at the TV. On the screen, Team Seoul and Team Busan were in the middle of a match.
Hmm. Was it because of that game that he hadn’t gone with her?
“Busan’s playing better, right?”
“Huh? Y-you know about it?”
When I pretended to know a little, the vending machine thief whipped her head around. Apparently it was surprising that I knew the Lel tournament teams.
“I play Lel.”
“Wow… really?”
“Of course. Do you play Lel, Seon-yeong?”
Well now—she looked so innocent. Was she a Lel player? I could say with certainty that I’d never seen a Lel player who hadn’t cursed someone out. Just imagining this squirrel-like girl throwing out foul language and fighting with her teammates… it was funny, and it even gave me a sense of kinship….
“Y-yes? No? I only watch.”
I froze. I’d been about to feel a connection when I stopped cold.
…She doesn’t play Lel, she only watches the matches? How does that even work?
“You don’t play Lel?”
“No… I tried, but it was too hard. And people yell at you.”
“Is that so~? Weird people, huh?”
Why would anyone curse while playing a game? You’re supposed to have fun together. Lel players sure are strange, no matter how you look at it.
“Right? Th-though there were plenty of nice people too.”
Seon-yeong started to agree with me, then seemed to remember that the older sister of her boyfriend sitting right next to her was a Lel player, and hurriedly sugarcoated it.
Wow. She dodged that trap interrogation nicely.
“Yeah? So which team do you root for, Seon-yeong?”
I asked with a casual smile, looking at the TV. The match looked favorable for Busan. There must have been a disaster early on—the bot lane already had a huge power difference.
“I-I root for Seoul.”
“Really? But they look like they’re getting pushed.”
I’m a top laner myself, but Lel is basically a bot lane game. Makes sense, right? Top is a solo lane, bot is two people. So the side that’s losing bot looks like they’re having a hard time….
“S-Seoul has a strong top, and Busan has a strong bot….”
“Is that so? Then I should root for Seoul too.”
“Huh?”
If I’m going to cheer, I have to cheer for our top laner. Leading the team alone like that—it’s just like me in solo queue.
“Um, so, but…”
“Yeah?”
As we watched the Lel match together like that, Seon-yeong, who’d been reading the room, cautiously tossed out a question.
“Uh, Unni, what do you do…?”
“Huh? Aseong didn’t tell you?”
It was such an unexpected question that I was momentarily flustered. Had Aseong not said anything?
“No? H-he just told me not to go up to the second floor.”
That little shit Aseong…. Too lazy to explain, so he just didn’t say a word. Well, I’d told him not to go around calling me his sister in the first place, but he could’ve at least told his girlfriend, right?
“Unni’s just a freelancer.”
More to the point—this girl didn’t even know my job, and she’d been walking on eggshells this whole time? I’d thought she was being careful because she knew I was a model.
“Y-yes?”
“I work when I feel like it and take it easy the rest of the time.”
In reality I was a hardcore workaholic who streamed even on regular days, but no need to mention that.
“Wow, freelancing sounds nice.”
“Why’s that?”
“You don’t have to commute.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
If I were a full-time streamer, I’d just game in my room with no commute, right? Man, that really is an enviable life.
Anyway.
“Oh right, if you like the tournaments, have you been to one in person?”
I wrapped up the job talk there and steered the conversation back to the tournament. She seemed to know a lot about the competitions—I should ask her all kinds of things so I could pretend to know stuff on stream.
“Oh, yes!”
“For real? What’s it like going?”
“It’s great! The week after next I’m going with Aseong too.”
“With Aseong? Aseong doesn’t even know Lel.”
Soccer or baseball, maybe. But Aseong going to a Lel tournament in person? Hard to picture.
“Ah! We decided to take turns going to each other’s things! Last time we went to a baseball game.”
Ah, I see. Youth, huh. Something about it rubbed me the wrong way in a way that made me understand how viewers who envy Aseong feel….
Uh, hmm.
“I’m gonna head upstairs now.”
“Huh?”
Right—I was in the middle of a stream. I’d gotten so absorbed in interrogating the vending machine thief that I’d forgotten.
“The people I game with are waiting.”
“Ah… yes!”
“Alright, have fun!”
Man, how many minutes had I been down here? A little panicked, I quickly said goodbye and headed up to the second floor.
Tap-tap-tap.
When I got back, sure enough, the chat was a complete dumpster fire.
Haa~ After looking at a fresh college girl, this was what I got.
“Sowwy~.”
“Ah, my little brother’s girlfriend came over.”
“She doesn’t know I stream.”
“Well, that too….”
More than anything, there was the difference in floors—but I didn’t bother saying that. It hadn’t been long since I’d dropped the young lady meme. I had no intention of throwing more wood on the fire by admitting the house had a second floor.
“Anyway… ah, I forgot to bring water.”
“I’ll just have coffee later instead.”
Nothing I could do. I texted Aseong—who should be back soon—to buy me coffee, and queued up another solo rank game.
“Until Diamond.”
For reference, I’d been grinding solo queue hard lately.
No other reason—Uncle Gangseok had just hit Emerald recently. Until not long ago he’d been Silver, so when that guy declared us friends, my hands had started shaking so hard I had no choice but to grind rank.
“Ah, messed up the role.”
“I’m not bad at it.”
A true solo queue warrior ought to have at least three champions they can play in any role. And among them, ADC was one I was pretty confident in.
I shall hunt those who have fallen into darkness.
After all, I sometimes played ADC champions even in top lane.
“If the arms are long, it’s ADC.”
And people weren’t using this lately? Come on, these noobs.
“This is a tournament pick.”
I’d just watched Team Busan completely wreck their opponents with it earlier. For the record, while I was waiting in queue I checked—and Team Seoul had won the match.
“Of course I know. I’m a caster.”
“What finals?”
“Ah.”
There were finals? Aseong said he was going in person—must be that tournament.
“I’ll pass.”
I was a little jealous, honestly. Other things I could take or leave, but I really wanted to watch a finals match live at least once. Not enough to bother with ticketing, though. I wasn’t confident at ticketing to begin with. I’d tried for concerts and festivals for artists I actually wanted to see, and my record was a catastrophic zero percent win rate.
Anyway.
“Watch closely. See how I explode bot lane.”
The game started, so I began the laning phase full of confidence.
We lost.
One game, then two.
As I played, I started feeling like something was off.
“Hey, my coffee.”
I’d kept losing focus, and now I knew why. The coffee I’d ordered an hour ago still hadn’t arrived.
“Did the vending machine forget….”
“This won’t do. I’m going to go teach it a lesson.”
So, hanging out with his girlfriend made him forget his main job? To remind him that his occupation was not college student but coffee vending machine, I rolled up my sleeves and headed down the stairs.
“Hey, Kim Aseong, my coffee….”
Getting big for his britches these days. How hard was it to buy one coffee for his working older sister….
“Is there no way?”
“Tsk… sorry….”
Hmm.
I gently rolled my sleeves back down. What was with these two looking so serious? Looking closer, there was coffee sitting in the kitchen. So he had bought it properly.
Sneaking carefully, I was just about to grab only the coffee off the kitchen table and head back up when—
“Ah, Noona.”
This clueless little shit spotted me and called out.
“Uh, yeah.”
Crap. I don’t usually get involved in couples’ fights, but now that I’d been seen, just running away would look bad.
“Ahem. What’s going on?”
Well, as the older sister, I had to mediate, right?
“Ah, well….”
What Aseong told me, looking troubled, turned out to be nowhere near as serious as I’d expected.
“The academic conference is the week after next?”
“Yeah….”
Lately Aseong had become a college student too, so Dad had been taking him to conferences. And the week after next there was an especially important one. Unfortunately, the tournament finals happened to be the exact same day.
“I was going to surprise him, so I didn’t tell him in advance….”
Apparently Seon-yeong had secured two seats, but because she’d waited to tell him the date for the surprise, the schedules had collided. I thought they should’ve coordinated this kind of thing ahead of time… but what could you do? Women were creatures obsessed with surprises.
“I thought something big had happened.”
Anyway, I let out a breath of relief over such a minor problem. These kids, getting this serious over something like this?
“Aseong, what good is having an older sister for, huh.”
That little shit. When something like this comes up, all he has to do is ask his noona for one favor.
“Noona?”
“I can just go in your place.”
“F-for real?”
Aseong looked at me like he couldn’t believe it. Was it that hard to believe? It wasn’t that big a deal.
“B-but you always hated going to conferences.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
I frowned at Aseong’s words. Why would I go to a conference? I’d given up on math over thirty years ago.
“Huh?”
“I’ll go enjoy the tournament for you.”
Aseong, you might not know this, but that’s the finals of an international match being held in Korea for the first time in years. You can’t just cancel that. And how am I supposed to send that fragile girl alone? Besides—wouldn’t it be more polite for me to go than Aseong, who doesn’t know the first thing about Lel?
“Noona….”
Kid, your noona is being considerate here. Why are you looking at me like that?
“It’s nothing….”
Moved, Aseong softly lowered his eyes.